Hello from sunny Southern California! This weekend Los Angeles hosts Book Expo America, which brings together booksellers, authors, publishers, and hangers on who just wanted an excuse to get out of Portland media types for an industry-wide orgy of schmoozing, wheeling, dealing, networking, and maybe a little reading, too.

It’s proving very, very difficult to pry myself out of real live honest to god SUNSHINE to explore the vast halls of the convention center—I’m outside right now and can hardly see my laptop screen, so apologies in advance for any egregious typos.

Between drinking margaritas, adjusting my bra straps so I don’t get weird tanlines, and reapplying bubblegum-flavored lip gloss, I’ve barely dipped a toe in the big sloppy wading pool that is BEA, but some initial impressions are after the jump.

The show opened yesterday, but there wasn't much going on—it was remainders day, publishers liquidating back stock on the cheap, not too interesting to any non-booksellers.

Paul Constant from the Stranger is around here somewhere, diligently Slogging (do they call it that? Was that dorky?)—in this post, he reports from last night's American Booksellers Association Celebration that the ABA is doing away with BookSense, their indie bookstore marketing campaign—you've seen the flyers, full of bookseller recommendations—and introducing a new campaign called IndieBound, which I think is about overthrowing the monarchy of heaven and replacing it with a republic. (Oh wait, that's His Dark Materials. IndieBound aims to "denounce the corporate brands which threaten to homogenize our cities and our souls."). Yesterday Paul instructed me via text message to "go sun myself guiltlessly," as there really wasn't much going on at BEA. So I did.

The LA Weekly devotes its cover story this week to the state of the novel, with an assortment of pieces including a great article about why the Powell's-sponsored Tournament of Books is the best book award competition out there (in a word: transparency), an excerpt from Salman Rushdie's newest, and some musings on how McSweeny's "makes publishing fun." (So suck it, n+1)

Today, though, is chock full of author readings, panels, informational sessions, and the like, and all of the booths are set up with publishers doing their best to woo booksellers. The most interesting initial aspect of BEA, at least to a publishing industry outsider like myself, is a chance to see firsthand just how much of an industry it really is. From the promotional schwag to the free book giveaways to the dude dressed up like a giant mouse and handing out flyers, the bottom line here is money. Most people aren't talking about how great their books are, they're talking about how well they will sell.

This morning's YA breakfast panel, which I will probably regret missing for the rest of my life, featured Judy Blume (!) and Neil Gaiman; later, Ann M Martin (who I totally thought was dead, whoops) and the overrated Jonathan Stroud signed for eager crowds (embarassingly, I am carrying my schwag in a Christopher Paolini bag).

More in a bit.